re: Would A&M be undefeated if they stayed in the Big XII (Posted on 11/7/12 at 5:13 pm to 20ozBulldog)

kstate is the only good football team in the big 12 this year. their usual upper tier guys (tejas, okie) and okie lite are mid tier guys this year. yea, if a&m were in teh big 12 they would be challenging for the title. actually, sherman did a good job with recruiting, esp offense recruiting. he was a good judge of talent. just didn't respect the other side of the ball and put his best players on offense at the expense of defense. plus, the players didn't esp relate to the guy.

re: Would A&M be undefeated if they stayed in the Big XII (Posted on 11/7/12 at 5:31 pm to TbirdSpur2010)

I pretty much disagree with a bunch honestly.

Sherman was not great at closing recruiting battles. He lost a bunch. But it's not like he was moving players to offense. Hell, one of his favorite recruits was Compton who he moved to defense and Sumlin moved back. It had nothing to do with a preference and everything to do with not being able to close on elite guys for the most part (it didn't help that he only had one decent recruiter on his def staff)

Also, he did an amazing job spotting talent on both sides, not just offense. Guys like Moore, Obioha, and Everett are all under the radar types that he took on defense. So while clearly the "players didn't relate" comment is the biggest whiff in that, none of it was particularly correct

re: Would A&M be undefeated if they stayed in the Big XII (Posted on 11/7/12 at 5:33 pm to 20ozBulldog)

I'm really glad we will never know. Watching some B12 games this year all I could think about was how happy I was A&M was out of that league, we were a terrible cultural fit there.

That said, we would have been really good. The schedule would have had both KState and OU at Kyle (as well as Tech) and honestly I don't think any of the other teams would stay on the field with A&M. We may have struggled with some of the pass crazy teams but none of them play any defense AT ALL.

Honestly I would feel more proud of finishing 2nd in the SEC West than winning a Big 12 Championship though. The step up has been tough but at least if we can find a way to win we are likely looking at a NC opportunity. Even if the Big 12 manages to get a team in the Natty this year or going forward that team likely will get spanked. They just aren't getting the athletes they did a few years ago and the trend is getting worse at a rapid rate. It looks like A&M is going to be doing more selecting than recruiting in '14 in Texas and other SEC schools plus Oregon and USC are in the mix as well. Not much left over for Texas much less the rest of the Big Dumpster Fire.

re: Would A&M be undefeated if they stayed in the Big XII (Posted on 11/7/12 at 7:10 pm to bayou2003)

Sherman built a great offense at A&M. He just had zero feel for NCAA play calling and was fired when he wouldn't accept an offensive coordinator.

I think that if Tim DeRuyter had stuck on as DC, things would really have improved. The problem was that he ran a very complex defense and didn't seem to do a very good job simplifying it for the talent that he had in place.

Given our shitty secondary, we would have been in a number of shootouts this season (OU, Tceh, Ok State). I think that Baylor, WVU, and tu are all bad enough defensively, that we would have beaten them convincingly.

All of that having been said, I am soooooo happy to be out of that dysfunctional nightmare!

re: Would A&M be undefeated if they stayed in the Big XII (Posted on 11/7/12 at 7:19 pm to 20ozBulldog)

quote:Seems like they are playing well in this league, but I wonder if they are overrated

Would not be undefeated in the Big 12. Also, not overrated this year.

Last years A&M team would have done better in SEC last year. Ags scored points.. lots of them. Ags played very good run defense. Our secondary was horrible. A&M had over 600 total yards vs Ark last year with 360 rushing.

This years A&M team scores lots of points. This year we play pretty good run defense. Problem we have is still in the secondary, pass defense still isn't that good. Much improved but still not that good. SEC teams just aren't pass happy and aren't built to take advantage of Ags defense biggest weakness. A few Big 12 teams would throw for 400+ against us so no undefeated season in Big 12. La Tech was a nightmare for our defense because they throw like a Big 12 team.

Other A&M weakness is depth on D. If Ags offense doesn't stay on field vs Bama, then Bama size and strength takes it toll on us and we have big problems. Time of possession is crucial for us. Need to avoid 3 and outs.

Finally, we have a major problem in our kicking game this year. You will see this firsthand on Saturday.

re: Would A&M be undefeated if they stayed in the Big XII (Posted on 11/7/12 at 7:46 pm to aggressor)

quote:They just aren't getting the athletes they did a few years ago and the trend is getting worse at a rapid rate. It looks like A&M is going to be doing more selecting than recruiting in '14 in Texas and other SEC schools plus Oregon and USC are in the mix as well. Not much left over for Texas much less the rest of the Big Dumpster Fire.

Because we all know recruiting wins games.

Texas has done mighty fine the past 3 years with all those 5 stars.

And Kansas State is succeeding this year on the backs of all those 4 and 5 star recruits... oh wait.

I'd rather have a coach like Bill Snyder who turns 2 star recruits into 5 star players than a coach who gets a lot of 5 star players like Mack Brown and doesn't do anything with them